Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Hello! I spent my time in the Hampden area. I really haven't gotten the chance to explore Baltimore yet, and it's one of the areas that was most highly recommended to me! I took the lightrail with my roommate, and we walked to various locations and asked managers if they would mind us drawing in their stores. We stayed in each store about 45 minutes to an hour and a half, just talking to the people working and sketching. It was really pleasant! We also went into this really great pagan supply store, but we weren't allowed to draw, since there was a psychic reading going on.
My most successful sketches were from Atomic Books, Lovely Yarns, Suzie's Soba, and Caravanserai, respectively.

Atomic Books took all my money.

Lovely Yarns--EVERYONE HERE IS SO NICE

If you go to Suzie's Soba, get the steamed chicken dumplings and spicy pad thai.

Caravanserai is a little expensive!! But they have a lot a lot of interesting beads and imported fabrics.

I'm still not entirely sure what the focus of my map is yet, but I have Wednesday off, so I'll probably keep exploring.

Having put some thought into the idea of "People of Baltimore" I've decided to change my idea completely... Because of which I will have to go out again this weekend to start my new idea of "Cats and Rats of Baltimore". This will include all the areas I've seen cats and rats through out a good majority of the city. I will use the backdrop of my map as a line drawing Map of Baltimore and "zoom in" on the areas in which there were "spottings". But since I just thought of this idea I shall post my sketches from this weekend...

For my map, I wanted to do something a little atypical from what I normally would. I'm a big chicken, so what could be better than a tour of Haunted Baltimore?

My first stop was the Edgar Allan Poe House, but it was unfortunately closed for renovation.

Luckily, I managed to hit all my other "spooky" stops: Fort McHenry, the USS Constellation, and the Westminster Hall Graveyard, where Edgar Allan Poe is buried.

I've spent a lot of time searching for things to draw, but I don't think I'm done quite yet. The next chance I get, I'm going to the Admiral Fell Inn, supposedly the most haunted hotel in the city, and the Middleton Tavern.

My journey occurred over the course of a couple days. At first I wasn't sure where to begin, so I tried different routes towards the inner harbor. Along the way, I discovered an interesting spray paint drawing on a board leaning against a boarded up, broken house. It made a deep impression on me. The sign seemed to give off a strong, bad energy. As scared as I was, it inspired me to do my map on places which made me feel something. This ranged from bad feelings to good feelings. I felt like doing a personal map on areas which impacted me in some way or another would be worthwhile.

Knowing what direction I wanted to take helped take me to my next destination- the Mount Vernon Methodist Church. I chose this place because the church fills me with a sense of awe each time I see it; the colors and the architecture are so gorgeous. There were some people at the benches and tables; it was a little cold, but a beautiful day nevertheless.

Lastly, I went to the inner harbor. It was a bit dark when I arrived by the charm city circulator (for the other places, I walked). When I arrived, I scouted out a spot which I had walked by before when my apartment mates and I went out to go thrift shopping. Along the harbor, this spot allows the viewer to have a good view of the waves and boats. Staring at the waves bobble up and down slowly floods me with a sort of calm.

The next day was a rainy one. Because of that, I decided to take the light rail then the charm city circulator. My first destination for Saturday was Lexington Market. There weren't a lot of people there and the feeling that I got from there was sleepy and a bit depressing. It was a very similar feeling that I received the first time I visited the market; the place seems to be seeping with a sense of lifelessness. I didn't want to stay there for long, so I walked blocks down to the charm city circulator and went towards the inner harbor. There I was reminded of how warm and lovely the Barnes and Noble there is. The place made me feel instantaneously relaxed and happier; the atmosphere is very conducive for studying and meditating. Not to mention, the interior is so beautiful!

I don't know if I did what I was supposed to do, but it made sense for what I was trying to do. I'm mapping all of the restaurants surrounding the Baltimore convention center, specifically for the annual Otakon anime convention held there in mid-summer. For those who don't know, the convention center is just down the street from the Inner Harbor, so I had to map that area as well. There were so many restaurants in the area, I couldn't afford the time to sketch each place, or even the majority so I took photos of the places and signs, and spent most of my time very rough sketching the map so that I could then go back to the pictures and place them all where they should be. This was very time consuming, and I wouldn't have been able to finish in time otherwise, so I hope this is alright. Also, parking is a ripoff around the Inner Harbor.....that truth nugget was for free.

I wasn't fond of the Panel discussion for many reasons. One of my primary concerns was that there was no opposing point of view. Even if it is a topic that I agree with, if there is a discussion, there should be more than one point of view. I felt like it was just a gathering of people congratulating each other for sharing the same viewpoint as themselves. It was so bad that even the producer of "The Wire" David Simon pointed out how one sided it was. The panel was so biased, ill represented, and pseudo-factual that I was incapable of representing it in any other way than with a snarky and satirical voice.

For the map research project, I decided to focus on yarns and beads in Baltirmore since I love doing crochet and beading. Therefore, I decided to visit the yarn store called A Good Yarn which is located at Fells point. however, it was closed for some reason on the day I visited, so I only got to sketch the outside of the store.

I went to different yarn store located int Canton, going there by taking MTA bus from Fells point. it takes about 40minutes from MICA by bus.
the store called Balimore threadquarters, and they have different yarns, felts, fabric, and even threads!
They also had event called Yarn Bomb in the summer, which is an event to cover all the street trees and signal trunk with yarns. Also, the owner of the store told me that they always have different fibers exhibitions.

After visiting Baltimore ThreadQuarters, I also visited the beadazzled, which is located in Charles street. it is amazing beads store which have tons of beads and pendant. I got a namecard from the owner, and wandered around the store. I bought the wire and lovely beads.

there are two more stores I want to visit in Hampden area, so I am planning on visiting them on coming weekend.

I want to focus on Baltimore's antique shops for my map. I basically spent my day walking around the areas I researched online (Howard street and the neighborhood around it). Surprisingly I found lots of interesting antique shops. The neighborhood is filled with antique shops and there's even an antique shop street, but I'll definitely spend more time searching more antique stores.

My Idea of Map is the MICA Class&Major Map for new students. First, I checked the classes and Departments of each building by visiting the office and getting help from workers in the Office. I found out that Bunting is for Academic classes, Main have mostly fine arts classes especially Drawing. Also Photography classes are in Main. Fox is for Paintings and 2D classes such as Illustrations. Brown is for computer-related classes like Graphic Design and Animations or Environment Design. Station Building is for Sculpture. 15/15 is for sculpture and computers, but most were foundation. Gateway is for getting jobs and internship. This part took about 1hour half because I moved from place to place and talk with people. then I started to took sketches at front of each building around two hours. When I sketch them, I also considered about mediums and styles for each building. Unfortunately, rain began to drop. So I went out again on Monday morning. I started to track the route and drew on the sketchbook. It was hard because of cold weather. I felt like I am really working. This activity was hard but I enjoyed it well. One thing bothered me was that 24 hour was not enough to me! I am thinking about the style now. I want to work with less color and make everything simple and flat except Buildings which I researched. Thanks. Clara Myung

I have grown up in Baltimore my whole life, so a lot of places like the Inner Harbor disinterest me greatly, mostly because of tourists, but let's disregard a tangent. Fells Point has always fascinated me because of the history and the interesting shops and oddities around the neighborhood. Not to mention, the energy in Fells Point is alive... Maybe it has to do with the bars, but we can choose not to believe that. So, the places I have visited to conduct the research for my map varies. I wanted a little bit of everything rather than just "bars" or "galleries," excetra, excetra. Mostly because most of the places in Fells Point have a unique history to them (i.e. The Horse You Came In On was Edgar Allan Poe's bar of choice, or The Sound Garden almost got sued by the band, even though they didn't steal their name). Not to mention, Fells Point is known for the bars, and there are other places in Fells Point that are cool, and don't require an id and a need to get trashed every weekend.

Anyway, I toured Fells Point with my partner in crime Katie. We first went to Killer Trash, which is a vintage thrift store on South Broadway; past the Eastern Avenue intersection. There they have funky clothes: sequin bras, fur sweaters, plaid and striped pants, Prince-styled boots, cowboy hats, the list goes on and on. The owners are die-hard John Waters fans, which is pretty awesome.
Then, we ventured around the neighborhood, stumbling in and out of local galleries. We came across this Emporium on Thames. A local artist (Luana) owned it, and she sold art there. Not to mention, she sold books and "oddities," like tiny skulls and oujia board keychains and spinning globes and all kinds of really interesting objects. The store opened up like 3 years ago, so it's still relatively new. Of course Katie and I went into the Sound Garden; one of the best record/cd stores in Baltimore. They sell cds, dvds, and records for a reasonable price. They also sell t-shirts, pins, magnets, and video games. The customer service is always really friendly, and they always play amazing music in there.

The Horse You Came In On

After sketching for a bit, and having lots of people compliment "unsatisfying" sketches, we went to The Daily Grind; a cafe/coffee shop. They brew local coffee, and they also play interesting music in there. The place is very strategically placed, amongst all of the infamous bars on Thames. Not to mention, there were so weird people in there talking about "figuring out a way to cry during speed dating." If I knew what that meant, I wouldn't have written it down in my sketchbook... After experiencing Maggie Moos, a terrible Hawaiian shirt store and Brick Oven Pizza (which has a great wall illustration inside), we came across the Baltimore Tattoo Museum on Eastern Avenue. Not only is it a tattoo parlor, but it also shows art from countless tattoo artists and different periods in time that took tattooing to another level. The people working there were pretty cool and upbeat, but hey, they work in a tattoo parlor/museum, so I'd imagine that's fun.

In short, Fells Point is extremely interesting to just venture around in, and, in my personal opinion, is remotely a Baltimore scene that you can't find anywhere else.